Or, Apple could actually address the problem. Like in changing brand, or changing whole design.
Hmmm, eliminate the optical drive completely, and make room for an SSD for the OS & apps and second hard drive for data? Nice performance boost, and I would gladly pay for an external optical for use at home when I actually need it. Or access the drive on my Mac mini Server (while it works)
I don't propose this as the only solution, just offer two options, one with optical, one without and two drives (with various build options there too, 7200 & 5400, SSD and 7200, 5400 and huge 5400, etc). I would rather see two flavors of unibody, with no slot in the dual drive version. The SSD & 7200 option for a media or design profession seems ideal.
And change the battery management so that leaving a desktop replacement MBP plugged in all the time doesn't ruin the battery. Once the battery is fully charged and the magsafe is still plugged in all power should bypass the battery and power the machine directly, leaving the battery to take over only when the plug is pulled. And switch between integrated and dual graphics on the fly. Wait, now I am really digressing.
I just got my MacBook back YESTERDAY because it was getting it's SuperDrive replaced. It was able to read, but not burn. I find this pretty hilarious. I feel like my MacBook was the final straw for Apple! (Well maybe not....)
My MacBook Pro, my mothers older "original" MBP, my mothers old lamp iMac and my wife's iMac (2yo) all don't have working DVD drives. They can read DVDs, but forget writing them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonPrice67
Hmmm, eliminate the optical drive completely, and make room for an SSD for the OS & apps and second hard drive for data?
Or perhaps the new rumoured plastic MacBooks will remove the optical drive entirely. They won't be quite as small as the MBA, but could be very interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by adisor19
Thank goodness for Apple Care...
Umm.. yeah... should've extended that.
I might take the risk of upgrading my internal HDD myself with a faster/7200rpm bigger version... and replace the DVD drive at the same time.
I've used a slot loading drive for about two years without issues. It's a pioneer drive.
Either version (slot load vs. tray load) is prone to issues. Apple is a victim of the PC cheapskate plague, seeing as how all drives cost around $23 dollars for a DVD burner and $40 for a laptop version. All are competing on cost and not quality, and since they expect the drives to die with a $350 laptop in 2 years, who cares about quality?
Panasonic drives tend to cost more; whether that means higher quality is another story.
My drives in my mac Pro's are OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A which doing a google brings up made by Sony... unless you are saying that Hitachi is making these for Sony?
One more point: If you look at the related apple discussions (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.j...D=1154&start=0), the view/post count for the threads directly related to this issue are pretty high: 37,607 views, 26,956, 20,788... when compared to other threads on in the forums. That may imply that there are whole lot of us out there with the same problem, or at the very least that this problem is getting a lot of attention. I wonder how an issue escalates from a 'isolated incidents' to something that they will cover for users out of warranty? Does anyone know?
Long way to go yet. I remember an issue there not so long ago that racked up 92 pages of posts (this one's currently around 23), and Apple still failed to acknowledge it until some of the members started spreading the story around and it hit the media. Then they said they were working on it and eventually got it fixed for most people, but even that didn't reach the covering out of warranty stage (for most - it was inconsistent depending on the Apple store and employee).
... or maybe it has everything to do with the dictatorial Apple business model wherein Apple always decides what best for the customer to have (or not have in their computer), regardless of what the customer actually desires.
The problem is customer desires are often not within the realm of reality because they don't understand key factors behind the scenes.
Take the whole 'Blu-ray costs too much' nonsense. Part of it is because they are comparing it to DVD--a long established format (and therefor cheap). Another part is due to makers of HD-DVD drives (not machines) selling them at a lost near the end of the whole Blu-ray vs HD-DVD format war in an effort to either off load the things before the hammer came down or to try and save the rapidly dwindling HD-DVD marketshare (again giving the impression of a 'cheap' format),
My drives in my mac Pro's are OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A which doing a google brings up made by Sony... unless you are saying that Hitachi is making these for Sony?
I signed up to spread this love/knowledge: I recently purchased a 1st Gen Mac Pro from eBay with a Sony Optiarc drive... it was pre-installed with Leopard and every CD/DVD I tried played and burnt successfully, without a hitch. When it came to installing Snow Leopard however, the installation failed every time. So, using my girlfriend's MacBook Pro, I restored an image of Snow Leopard onto a USB flash drive, and it installed fine. When it came to installing iLife/iWork etc from DVD, the drive recognised the discs but failed to copy any data. I did a little bit of digging into the Optiarc drive and it seems NEC actually manufacture my drive, and Sony flash the firmware and stick their label on it. SO, I flashed the firmware back to the NEC original, and bingo. A fully functional drive, with higher burn speeds than the Sony firmware (and, ahem, region-free). The only drawback: it's a little noisier. Obviously, only do this if you're sure you've got the right drive, and are confident with a little bit of Terminal. Cheers!
Today is 1 month and 1 day after I bought Snow Leopard (I bought it the day it was released) and I have yet to get the son-of-a-bitch installed. It always makes it through to about 30 minutes left in the install, then gives an uninformative error message. Through multiple calls with Apple, I have reset my PRAM, reset my logic board, run disk utility on the Superdrive and hard drive, had my Superdrive replaced, had two replacement SL discs sent to me, and tried to do a full erase and install. The backup and erase happened last night, and the SL install STILL failed, so it is definitely a hardware issue. But now, my computer is bricked, and those a-holes better get it fixed, quickly.
I don't understand why the headline refers to "alleged issues." If your position is what's implied by that, why not title the article, "Apple investigates potential conspiracy to defame their quality control"?
I signed up to spread this love/knowledge: I recently purchased a 1st Gen Mac Pro from eBay with a Sony Optiarc drive... it was pre-installed with Leopard and every CD/DVD I tried played and burnt successfully, without a hitch. When it came to installing Snow Leopard however, the installation failed every time. So, using my girlfriend's MacBook Pro, I restored an image of Snow Leopard onto a USB flash drive, and it installed fine. When it came to installing iLife/iWork etc from DVD, the drive recognised the discs but failed to copy any data. I did a little bit of digging into the Optiarc drive and it seems NEC actually manufacture my drive, and Sony flash the firmware and stick their label on it. SO, I flashed the firmware back to the NEC original, and bingo. A fully functional drive, with higher burn speeds than the Sony firmware (and, ahem, region-free). The only drawback: it's a little noisier. Obviously, only do this if you're sure you've got the right drive, and are confident with a little bit of Terminal. Cheers!
Very interesting read. It seems people are having slightly different issues. I was able to successfully install Snow Leopard and it was only after I did that both drives stopped working. they don't read or write. Put a DVD in and they spin for a bit and then just open up. However, based on your experience, it sounds like Apple may be able to provide a firmware update to fix this.
Wrong answer. I have two mid 2007 intel Mac Pro's and a late 2008 MacBook Pro and successfully installed Snow Leopard on all three AND Rosetta on the two Mac Pro's. Right after that the the two "OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A:" super drives in the two Mac Pro's stopped reading discs. I could not install the new iWork DVD that I just bought because neither one would read the DVD where both had just read the Snow Leopard DVD just days before. On the other hand, I did NOT install Rosetta on the MacBook Pro and its drive is working just fine. It is DEFINITELY Snow Leopard related.
Not liking the Sony drives either. Took a PRAM reset to bring one back to life but it was still 10.5.
Today is 1 month and 1 day after I bought Snow Leopard (I bought it the day it was released) and I have yet to get the son-of-a-bitch installed. It always makes it through to about 30 minutes left in the install, then gives an uninformative error message. Through multiple calls with Apple, I have reset my PRAM, reset my logic board, run disk utility on the Superdrive and hard drive, had my Superdrive replaced, had two replacement SL discs sent to me, and tried to do a full erase and install. The backup and erase happened last night, and the SL install STILL failed, so it is definitely a hardware issue. But now, my computer is bricked, and those a-holes better get it fixed, quickly.
Only buy the good stuff. I've been using Taiyo Yuden for years and had not ONE failure!! I am on a 2006 MBP. I get it only from supermediastore.com - free shipping.
I know! My early 2006 MBP quit burning to quality DVD media years ago and the Apple geniuses wouldn't replace the drive. I brought in 3/4 of a 100pc spindle of Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs and told them that I had burned the 1/4 that was missing before it went out on me. Because it would burn on cheap media, they said the drive was fine and there were manufacturing tolerances on the media... yada yada. Well, they don't make media cheap enough for this drive anymore. It won't burn on anything that says 16x now. I'm going to make them fix it (I have applecare) and then I can finally burn my wedding DVD. I don't want to put that on cheap media that is going to fade out after a year on the shelf.
I've been on the aforementioned thread over at apple discussions for a while and I am certain the majority, if not all, of the users experiencing the SuperDrive failures are having a problem that is not related to Snow Leopard at all. The fact is, many people do not use their drives that often, and many only learned they had a problem when trying to install SL from the DVD.
I took mine into Apple and had the drive replaced under AppleCare. (It's worth noting a few users reported that using a disc cleaner or compressed air solved their issue.)
I'd have to agree that it doesn't have anything to do with Snow Leopard. I've had my MacBook (Spring 08 model) now for a little over a year and I haven't been able to burn a single disk the entire time that I've owned it.
Apple should just roll Applecare into the prices of their products. Those too cheap to buy it are the ones screaming the loudest when something fails out of the one year warranty period.
There is always eBay where you can save yourself about 50% or more off of the retail price of Applecare, though for those who don't wish to do that I completely agree with you.
I had one fail on a late 2007 MacBook Pro, not mounting some disks and having a hard time reading DVDs (skipping etc). Took it to the Apple Store (Regents Street, London) and the genius said that it was "just a matter of when, not if."
The replacement has been fine so far...
I have had the exact same problem with my first gen unibody. Some DVDs read some don't. This seems inconsistent across burnt DVDs and genuine ones. The Hitatchi Superdrive will try to read my genuine Office for Mac DVD, and will decide it is a blank disc after about 4mins.
Also burning CD-R fails almost 100% of the time with iTunes, but about 60% of the time with Toast.
I have had the exact same problem with my first gen unibody. Some DVDs read some don't. This seems inconsistent across burnt DVDs and genuine ones. The Hitatchi Superdrive will try to read my genuine Office for Mac DVD, and will decide it is a blank disc after about 4mins.
Also burning CD-R fails almost 100% of the time with iTunes, but about 60% of the time with Toast.
Read the thread again. The solution is simply cleaning the lens. Use a DVD lens cleaning disc (the kind with tiny brushes on the bottom of the disc). If at first it doesn't work, try, try again. Repeat at least 20 times to make it work. If it still doesn't work, the solution (if your laptop is out of warranty, and if you're good at taking things apart) is to open up the laptop and clean the lens with a cotton swab dipped in lens cleaning solution.
But the best thing to do is to use a lens cleaning disc periodically before you have a problem. That should keep the lens clean enough that you never have trouble reading discs.
Comments
Or, Apple could actually address the problem. Like in changing brand, or changing whole design.
Hmmm, eliminate the optical drive completely, and make room for an SSD for the OS & apps and second hard drive for data? Nice performance boost, and I would gladly pay for an external optical for use at home when I actually need it. Or access the drive on my Mac mini Server (while it works)
I don't propose this as the only solution, just offer two options, one with optical, one without and two drives (with various build options there too, 7200 & 5400, SSD and 7200, 5400 and huge 5400, etc). I would rather see two flavors of unibody, with no slot in the dual drive version. The SSD & 7200 option for a media or design profession seems ideal.
And change the battery management so that leaving a desktop replacement MBP plugged in all the time doesn't ruin the battery. Once the battery is fully charged and the magsafe is still plugged in all power should bypass the battery and power the machine directly, leaving the battery to take over only when the plug is pulled. And switch between integrated and dual graphics on the fly. Wait, now I am really digressing.
Gordon
I just got my MacBook back YESTERDAY because it was getting it's SuperDrive replaced. It was able to read, but not burn. I find this pretty hilarious. I feel like my MacBook was the final straw for Apple! (Well maybe not....)
My MacBook Pro, my mothers older "original" MBP, my mothers old lamp iMac and my wife's iMac (2yo) all don't have working DVD drives. They can read DVDs, but forget writing them.
Hmmm, eliminate the optical drive completely, and make room for an SSD for the OS & apps and second hard drive for data?
Or perhaps the new rumoured plastic MacBooks will remove the optical drive entirely. They won't be quite as small as the MBA, but could be very interesting.
Thank goodness for Apple Care...
Umm.. yeah... should've extended that.
I might take the risk of upgrading my internal HDD myself with a faster/7200rpm bigger version... and replace the DVD drive at the same time.
Either version (slot load vs. tray load) is prone to issues. Apple is a victim of the PC cheapskate plague, seeing as how all drives cost around $23 dollars for a DVD burner and $40 for a laptop version. All are competing on cost and not quality, and since they expect the drives to die with a $350 laptop in 2 years, who cares about quality?
Panasonic drives tend to cost more; whether that means higher quality is another story.
My drives in my mac Pro's are OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A which doing a google brings up made by Sony... unless you are saying that Hitachi is making these for Sony?
It's not mentioned in the article
One more point: If you look at the related apple discussions (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.j...D=1154&start=0), the view/post count for the threads directly related to this issue are pretty high: 37,607 views, 26,956, 20,788... when compared to other threads on in the forums. That may imply that there are whole lot of us out there with the same problem, or at the very least that this problem is getting a lot of attention. I wonder how an issue escalates from a 'isolated incidents' to something that they will cover for users out of warranty? Does anyone know?
Long way to go yet. I remember an issue there not so long ago that racked up 92 pages of posts (this one's currently around 23), and Apple still failed to acknowledge it until some of the members started spreading the story around and it hit the media. Then they said they were working on it and eventually got it fixed for most people, but even that didn't reach the covering out of warranty stage (for most - it was inconsistent depending on the Apple store and employee).
... or maybe it has everything to do with the dictatorial Apple business model wherein Apple always decides what best for the customer to have (or not have in their computer), regardless of what the customer actually desires.
The problem is customer desires are often not within the realm of reality because they don't understand key factors behind the scenes.
Take the whole 'Blu-ray costs too much' nonsense. Part of it is because they are comparing it to DVD--a long established format (and therefor cheap). Another part is due to makers of HD-DVD drives (not machines) selling them at a lost near the end of the whole Blu-ray vs HD-DVD format war in an effort to either off load the things before the hammer came down or to try and save the rapidly dwindling HD-DVD marketshare (again giving the impression of a 'cheap' format),
My drives in my mac Pro's are OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A which doing a google brings up made by Sony... unless you are saying that Hitachi is making these for Sony?
I signed up to spread this love/knowledge: I recently purchased a 1st Gen Mac Pro from eBay with a Sony Optiarc drive... it was pre-installed with Leopard and every CD/DVD I tried played and burnt successfully, without a hitch. When it came to installing Snow Leopard however, the installation failed every time. So, using my girlfriend's MacBook Pro, I restored an image of Snow Leopard onto a USB flash drive, and it installed fine. When it came to installing iLife/iWork etc from DVD, the drive recognised the discs but failed to copy any data. I did a little bit of digging into the Optiarc drive and it seems NEC actually manufacture my drive, and Sony flash the firmware and stick their label on it. SO, I flashed the firmware back to the NEC original, and bingo. A fully functional drive, with higher burn speeds than the Sony firmware (and, ahem, region-free). The only drawback: it's a little noisier. Obviously, only do this if you're sure you've got the right drive, and are confident with a little bit of Terminal. Cheers!
BTW, it's a late 2008 Macbook.
I signed up to spread this love/knowledge: I recently purchased a 1st Gen Mac Pro from eBay with a Sony Optiarc drive... it was pre-installed with Leopard and every CD/DVD I tried played and burnt successfully, without a hitch. When it came to installing Snow Leopard however, the installation failed every time. So, using my girlfriend's MacBook Pro, I restored an image of Snow Leopard onto a USB flash drive, and it installed fine. When it came to installing iLife/iWork etc from DVD, the drive recognised the discs but failed to copy any data. I did a little bit of digging into the Optiarc drive and it seems NEC actually manufacture my drive, and Sony flash the firmware and stick their label on it. SO, I flashed the firmware back to the NEC original, and bingo. A fully functional drive, with higher burn speeds than the Sony firmware (and, ahem, region-free). The only drawback: it's a little noisier. Obviously, only do this if you're sure you've got the right drive, and are confident with a little bit of Terminal. Cheers!
Very interesting read. It seems people are having slightly different issues. I was able to successfully install Snow Leopard and it was only after I did that both drives stopped working. they don't read or write. Put a DVD in and they spin for a bit and then just open up. However, based on your experience, it sounds like Apple may be able to provide a firmware update to fix this.
Wrong answer. I have two mid 2007 intel Mac Pro's and a late 2008 MacBook Pro and successfully installed Snow Leopard on all three AND Rosetta on the two Mac Pro's. Right after that the the two "OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7170A:" super drives in the two Mac Pro's stopped reading discs. I could not install the new iWork DVD that I just bought because neither one would read the DVD where both had just read the Snow Leopard DVD just days before. On the other hand, I did NOT install Rosetta on the MacBook Pro and its drive is working just fine. It is DEFINITELY Snow Leopard related.
Not liking the Sony drives either. Took a PRAM reset to bring one back to life but it was still 10.5.
Today is 1 month and 1 day after I bought Snow Leopard (I bought it the day it was released) and I have yet to get the son-of-a-bitch installed. It always makes it through to about 30 minutes left in the install, then gives an uninformative error message. Through multiple calls with Apple, I have reset my PRAM, reset my logic board, run disk utility on the Superdrive and hard drive, had my Superdrive replaced, had two replacement SL discs sent to me, and tried to do a full erase and install. The backup and erase happened last night, and the SL install STILL failed, so it is definitely a hardware issue. But now, my computer is bricked, and those a-holes better get it fixed, quickly.
BTW, it's a late 2008 Macbook.
SATA interface?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm
Only buy the good stuff. I've been using Taiyo Yuden for years and had not ONE failure!! I am on a 2006 MBP. I get it only from supermediastore.com - free shipping.
I know! My early 2006 MBP quit burning to quality DVD media years ago and the Apple geniuses wouldn't replace the drive. I brought in 3/4 of a 100pc spindle of Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs and told them that I had burned the 1/4 that was missing before it went out on me. Because it would burn on cheap media, they said the drive was fine and there were manufacturing tolerances on the media... yada yada. Well, they don't make media cheap enough for this drive anymore. It won't burn on anything that says 16x now. I'm going to make them fix it (I have applecare) and then I can finally burn my wedding DVD. I don't want to put that on cheap media that is going to fade out after a year on the shelf.
I've been on the aforementioned thread over at apple discussions for a while and I am certain the majority, if not all, of the users experiencing the SuperDrive failures are having a problem that is not related to Snow Leopard at all. The fact is, many people do not use their drives that often, and many only learned they had a problem when trying to install SL from the DVD.
I took mine into Apple and had the drive replaced under AppleCare. (It's worth noting a few users reported that using a disc cleaner or compressed air solved their issue.)
I'd have to agree that it doesn't have anything to do with Snow Leopard. I've had my MacBook (Spring 08 model) now for a little over a year and I haven't been able to burn a single disk the entire time that I've owned it.
Apple should just roll Applecare into the prices of their products. Those too cheap to buy it are the ones screaming the loudest when something fails out of the one year warranty period.
There is always eBay where you can save yourself about 50% or more off of the retail price of Applecare, though for those who don't wish to do that I completely agree with you.
I had one fail on a late 2007 MacBook Pro, not mounting some disks and having a hard time reading DVDs (skipping etc). Took it to the Apple Store (Regents Street, London) and the genius said that it was "just a matter of when, not if."
The replacement has been fine so far...
I have had the exact same problem with my first gen unibody. Some DVDs read some don't. This seems inconsistent across burnt DVDs and genuine ones. The Hitatchi Superdrive will try to read my genuine Office for Mac DVD, and will decide it is a blank disc after about 4mins.
Also burning CD-R fails almost 100% of the time with iTunes, but about 60% of the time with Toast.
I have had the exact same problem with my first gen unibody. Some DVDs read some don't. This seems inconsistent across burnt DVDs and genuine ones. The Hitatchi Superdrive will try to read my genuine Office for Mac DVD, and will decide it is a blank disc after about 4mins.
Also burning CD-R fails almost 100% of the time with iTunes, but about 60% of the time with Toast.
Read the thread again. The solution is simply cleaning the lens. Use a DVD lens cleaning disc (the kind with tiny brushes on the bottom of the disc). If at first it doesn't work, try, try again. Repeat at least 20 times to make it work. If it still doesn't work, the solution (if your laptop is out of warranty, and if you're good at taking things apart) is to open up the laptop and clean the lens with a cotton swab dipped in lens cleaning solution.
But the best thing to do is to use a lens cleaning disc periodically before you have a problem. That should keep the lens clean enough that you never have trouble reading discs.